ANOTHER MORALISTIC WRITER WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND ENDORPHINS

I have no idea who Raymond J Lawrence, the man who wrote an article for CounterPunch on 3/6, is nor how he comes to his simplistic conclusions.  Sex is not addictive to most people as alcohol imbibed is not addictive universally.  However, no one can dispute the fact that body chemistry determines one's libido.  One only has to see a bi-polar patient in a hypermanic state to realize the strength of his/her libido has ridden off the charts.

We can talk about medications and how they are useful and I would be the first to state that medication has totally changed the need for patients to have years of incarceration in mental hospitals as in the past.  Many, who would otherwise need medication for depression, can control their lives with stress exercise and kicking in their endorphins (the body's brand of morphine), which is why it is often referred to as 'jogger's high'.

Before this phenomenon was understood, marriages broke up and many people suffered needlessly.  This is in no way a validation that unbalanced chemistry can be used as an excuse for need for sex thus rape, extra-marital affairs, multiple partners or any of the deviant behavior we have all heard about or seen.  However, it does spread the responsibility for those observing the behavior to give some thought to it.  I recall a woman, admitting her husband to a mental hospital, saying, "Thank God,  I've been flat on my back for three days.  I can get some sleep tonight."  Nor can I forget a woman who, after being properly medicated and feeling herself normal, expressed shame that she could not control her sexual desires while manic and had sex with her brother-in-law.

This is the reversal of a man who was depressed, medicated, but had a retroactive, very painful ejaculation while having sex (one of the rare but true side effects of the medication he was prescribed) with his wife in attempting to start a family.  He was able to stabilize his chemistry through stress exercise and when I saw him much later he introduced his infant son with pride.

As a society, we are filled with people who make assumptions on little knowledge, are too quick to moralize rather than understand the dynamics of chemistry imbalance and other forces at work for the deviant behavior.  When I say that others bear some of the responsibility, the manic person sees nothing wrong with his/her thinking which they almost believable rationalize,  However, those around them see that something is wrong and fear or are unable to confront or set limits on that person's behavior.  Just as AA suggests an intervention, so does the unacceptable behavior of the teenager courting death, the bully, the abuser, and the irrational behavior of the manic person who is acting out sexually, or the clinically depressed person trying to manage anxiety and the crippling, energy robbing depression..

STOP WHINING, OLD PEOPLE

Irritation attacks me when I hear old people whine about how it is Hell to get old. I'm old and it is just another change in life to get used to, as so many other changes. I've done all the things I wanted to do when I was young...well maybe not everything I might have done if I could have fitted it in...but I have lived a VERY full life. All memories worth retaining are stored in my brain; pictures, videos, and many in the minds of others who keep telling me about 'the good old days' and who constantly remind me of details I might have forgotten.

Indeed, my body is not as strong as it used to be, but do I need it to be? I no longer need to sling a wiggly child on my hip while holding a baby in my arms while trying to secure the hand of a 6 year old. Then is when I needed strength, while I was young. I didn't need a gym...I exercised carrying kids, groceries, mountains of laundry, while bending to pick up toys that always had a million parts always to be found by my bare feet, before computer games came in and rescued parents. My body doesn't need to grow a baby to term only to find out at the end of nine months and three weeks I have given birth to an 8# 14 oz., overcooked infant who plotted to walk out of my womb feet first(aka footling breach).

Arthritic pain has become a companion to rival all the figurative pains in the neck and butt I've managed to endure over the work years while I was young. Actually, the arthritis is easier to bear and my livelihood does not depend on my sucking in my opinions when I knew the bosses were wrong.

It is easy to laugh at old people who claim to be bored while I am wishing to be doing any of the ten things I could be happily doing at the moment, all at the tips of my fingers, so to speak. It annoys me to hear old people say they are lonely. They either have been around the wrong people all their lives or are bored because they are boring themselves. In this day of chats, senior centers, computers and the Internet, volunteer work, hobbies, and everything else that is available, my mind is boggled as to how someone can be bored. Then again, I can be bored when I am forced to sit waiting or listening to boring people; or when someone is trying to tell me how to live my life and how I should feel. Sermons of any sort bore me with rare exception.

My answer to people who tell me I do not act my age is, "My birth manual was missing the later life chapters". I don't mind listening to the physical ailments of my friends as long as the information is new both from and about them. When it is all they have to talk about, I stop listening and turn them off by discussing religion and politics until they are driven to suddenly remember a doctor's appointment. Above all, I have learned to avoid suffering fools. In fact, I avoid suffering anything about which I have a choice.

So, if you have to whine, whine about illness...(that's your bad luck) less than great genes, or not taking good care of your body. Some illnesses in old age could have been prevented and maybe you didn't try. If it is something you could not have prevented then accept the inevitable, try to get the best medical care within your reach, and accept the reality...ill health is not necessarily part of old age. Babies can even be born ill, and illness can come at any point in life.

And, before I forget, belly laughs kick in your endorphins...get lots of them!